Parents and Teachers : Partners or Rivals?

Originally published in 1968, this book was for every parent who had ever wondered ‘What goes on in my child’s school – whom do I ask, what do I ask, and dare I ask?’; and for every teacher who had ever thought, ‘How can I get closer to parents and enlist their aid in what I am trying to teach?’ At the time Lawrence Green was a junior-school head teacher with long experience in the ‘deprived’ areas of a large city – and had two children at school. His articles on parent-teacher cooperation in the magazine ‘Where?’ aroused very wide interest and led to reviews in the national press and appearances on the BBC and ITV. Requests for details of his two-way reports – in which parents were invited to give the school a picture of the child at home – were received from all over the world.

This is a practical and deeply-felt book, a living illustration of the kind of cooperation which could make the Plowden Report a reality. It deals frankly with the difficulties of starting and maintaining links between home and school, but describes the kind of success which could be achieved. The intention was that it should be read by all who cared about education and wanted to cross the line which too often separated parent and teacher at the time. Today it can be read in its historical context.